In 1989 I graduated from engineering school, got a job, rented an apartment and, since Dad wanted his ’83 Renault Alliance back, went car shopping. I wanted to buy a used car, and had even found a great deal on a low-mileage ’72 Karmann-Ghia. Unfortunately, I had no money and no credit history, so nobody in town would write me a loan. Disappointed but undaunted, I turned to General Motors, which offered to loan me up to thirty thousand dollars to buy a new car. “You’ve achieved so much,” the form letter said, “with your recent graduation. We think that makes you a good risk, so we invite you to reward yourself with a fine new General Motors car.”

I admired GM’s optimism about my ability to pay; fortunately, I was more realistic than they were about my finances. I went to a Chevy dealer and bought a basic car–a maroon Beretta with four cylinders and five speeds–for far less than GM’s largess allowed. In my sole concession to luxury, I had the stereo upgraded to a unit with a tape deck.

I’d never driven a new car. It cruised so smoothly! It had such power (compared to the slug-slow Alliance)! That stereo really rocked! Even so, I wasn’t enjoying the car payments. I knew I’d want to keep this car long after it was paid off, which meant keeping it in top shape and thus worth having. I followed the maintenance schedule religiously and had every funny noise checked. I also washed and waxed my car about every week and kept the interior spotless.

And then the troubles started.

After about a month, I was driving under a dying tree whose branches hung over the road. It deposited a log onto my car’s roof. Just after I got the car back from the body shop, a fellow driving his flatbed Ford truck alongside me decided to change lanes without checking his mirrors.

Then the windshield wipers quit working, and it took the dealer’s mechanic three tries to perform a repair that lasted. Then the stereo died; I saved up and installed a new one myself. Next, the power steering pump started making strange noises. This time it took the mechanic four tries to fix it right.

Later, I hit a patch of ice and slid partway off the road–as did the car behind me, right into my rear quarter. The body shop did a pretty good job of untwisting the considerable damage to my car’s understructure, but forever hence there was a spot in the front-passenger footwell that would pop like the lid of a baby-food jar with a little light pressure.

One day when I tried to turn the car off, something snapped, and my key spun freely in the ignition. It turned out that the ignition rack broke in half, a failure I’ve since learned was common among Berettas and their Corsica siblings.

The headliner had started coming down over the back seat passengers’ heads, and I reattached it with neat rows of staples. Then came the day I leaned back to square my butt in the seat, when a bracket holding the seat to the floor sheared in half. Suddenly I found myself staring at the neat rows of staples in the roof. Thankfully, this happened in my driveway. I fixed it with a bracket from a junked Beretta.

Despite my best efforts, the car came to be in sad shape, and my enthusiasm for care and maintenance deteriorated along with it. Thinking I’d wasted my effort, I was deeply disappointed. Why care so much when external events, and plain fate, had so maliciously conspired against my little car?

Yes, cars fall apart. It’s what they do. I was naive to think my Beretta would stay like new for so many years. And yes, time heals all wounds, and I do have some great memories of my first and only new car.

I remember aimless drives in the country behind the wheel of the Beretta to clear my head when life was tough.

I remember long road trips in my Beretta, including a sweep I made alone through Detroit, Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Hoboken to see old friends–and also a trip with my Dad, to the tiny town of Handley, West Virginia, to see where he grew up and meet relatives I never knew I had.

I remember driving in my Beretta to the old mill dam in Terre Haute with a girlfriend, where we’d sit and talk and maybe have a smooch.

I remember how the woman I married got me out of a speeding ticket with a wink and a wiggle.

I remember the frigid January day when I brought my first-born son home in my Beretta.

In other words, I remember enjoying my car against the entire backdrop of those years of my life. Such is a big part of what cements a car nut’s love–it’s not just about the car and its mechanicals. It’s about the experiences we had with them.

I drove my Beretta for eight years and 150,000 miles. Now that I’ve owned a lot more cars, I’ve come to realize that it actually ran pretty well and looked no worse than usual for its age. I’d have been happy to keep driving it, but my third son was on the way. My wife also happily drove a little coupe, and while we’d become quite adept at contorting ourselves to mount child seats in the back, we just couldn’t fit two child seats and a teenager abreast in either of our cars. It was time to upgrade one of them. I drew the short straw, and traded in the Beretta on a family car. I’ll tell you about that one after I write up my wife’s car, a 1989 Toyota Corolla SR5.

44 Comments

Too bad it wasn’t a V6. I cannot imagine how slow the alliance was if a 90(?)hp I4 was faster!

I got one (a GTU) and its a really good car, especially for the time. Has to be one of the nicest looking designs from the 80s, aged very well.

That’s funny you had the seat problem, my parents did as well, and the original seat bracket on mine was welded when I replaced the seats with nicer Beretta INDY pace car seats. As a matter of fact, they actually had a recall for the seat bracket snapping.

The Alliance was just a terribly slow car. The 4 cyl. Beretta probably hit 60 mph in 12 seconds, which wasn’t bad in 1989 for an economy car. I didn’t know that the seat bracket was subject to recall! What a pain in the pratt it was getting at that stupid thing.

I think the 5 speed was the way to go with the 4 cyl Beretta. I can’t remember why now, but shortly after I bought mine it went back to the dealer for something and they loaned me a 4 cyl Beretta with an automatic for a couple days. That automatic totally hobbled that engine’s ability to accelerate.

I graduated from college in 1984, ten years later than I should have. The US Army, and work in a steel mill precluded me from graduating sooner. Right before I graduated, I bought a new 84 blue metallic base Camaro. A 6 cyl automatic, with only a radio, ralley wheels with whitewalls, as options. $ 9,600 drive out, I wrote a check. (I remember the girl at the dealer arguing with me to finance the car. I told her to either take my check or I was walking out.)

Had the car til 1993, when I sold it to a guy for $ 2,000. The Camaro was almost trouble free for 70K. The only warranty work was the gear shift knob came off. Aside from maintenance, no repair work, except for a heater core which I replaced myself right before I sold it. The car still looked great, except for some minor paint peel which I touched up with spray cans. The fold down back seat was in tatters due to the huge back window.

Since new, it was all show, no go. It was the only car I ever owned that young ladies noticed. It had a little of the Corvette mystique. Too bad, I was over 30 when I got it, and over 40 when I sold it.

“In other words, I remember enjoying my car against the entire backdrop of those years of my life. Such is a big part of what cements a car nut’s love–it’s not just about the car and its mechanicals. It’s about the experiences we had with them.”

From 1989 to 1995, I owned an ’85 Plymouth Turismo that I could say much the same thing about, although the time frame when I owned it was a little earlier in my life than the time frame when you had the Beretta. When I bought the Turismo, I was 18 and just finishing my freshman year of college; when I got rid of it, I was 24, married, and just finishing up law school. A lot happened in between.

My wife bought a 95 Beretta new. I’m driving it as a daily driver. I refuse to sell it with less that 1/4 million miles on it! It currently has ~243,000.
Still runs strong and only minor repairs every other year, not bad for a 20 yr old car.

david russell

Posted February 5, 2015 at 11:10 AM

But how can this be??!!? It’s an American car you’re writing about here – surely it should have rotted to bits by 1997, in the dealer’s garage, after three complete rebuilds failed to amend its defects? ;+)

So many of life’s events seem to link to a particular car. I have owned quite a few, and it is one of my ways of remembering when certain things happened.

My only new car (that became all mine, the two since have been purchased mainly for the Mrs. to drive) was owned during a two year period that began with my graduation from law school. I was right out there in front of everything with a new car. But after a couple of years, I had tired of the payments and was fearful of life with a VW after a two year warranty.

Your picture of the broken window reminds me of how someone broke into my GTI when it was less than a year old. I went to pick the car up after the repairs and looked at the roof over the driver’s door. The thoughtful bodyman had slid the door glass onto and off of my black roof and scratched the snot out of it. Grrrrrrr. I told them to do everything they could do short of painting it. It mostly buffed out, but still stared at me every time I got into the car.

Like you, I enjoyed many experiences with the car and remember it fondly. And it is funny how your first new car convinces you that 1) you will keep it forever and 2) with care it will continue to look and drive just like it did the first day you had it. No. 1 is almost never true and No. 2 is certainly never true.

But the aura still holds. In a little while, I am going to brave snow-covered roads to head to my friendly Kia dealer for an oil change so that my poor car does not go more than 3k on its horrible dirty old oil during an out of town trip soon. It is only a bit over a year old, you see, and I plan to keep it forever. Of course, it will always stay just like it is now if I take good care of it. 🙂

I constantly find myself saying, “Well, I was driving _____ when that happened, so it had to be between x and y years.”

I’m like you; I’ve purchased more new cars than just this one because that’s what my now ex wanted, but this was the only new car I bought for me.

And I’m so over buying new cars. This is mostly because I haven’t had a payment in eight years and really enjoy that lifestyle. I just bought a 2006 Ford Focus from my dad — not because I really wanted a Focus, but because it’s been a reliable car for him, I know he took care of it, and I could write a check for it.

A friend of mine leased a new 1989 Beretta GT, with the V6 and 5 speed. Except for a broken motor mount, it was fairly trouble free for the 4 years he had it. It was white with a camel interior, which matched my 1988 Monte Carlo SS. My Monte Carlo SS was anything but trouble free.

Ah, I also owned an ’89 Corolla SR5. I bought it new in Dec ’88 and sold it in Aug ’94 with almost 130k miles. Had the 4a-f1.6 with 90hp. Last year of a carburetor. 5 speed stick. Metallic blue. AC and tape deck. That was my car when I graduated from Ga Tech, went into the USMC as a 2nd Lieutenant, left for the First Gulf War, got me to Wilmington, NC on the weekends to see my girlfriend, was with me when I got out of the USMC and moved to Harrisonburg, VA, and finally got me to Kingman, AZ. The SUV bug finally bit me and I sold it to a co-worker. After I sold it, I instantly regretted it and still miss that car.

Wow, you had one of the rare blue ones! Most of them were red, though white and black were also common. I think I’ve seen blue ones only a couple times ever. You’re right, last year for the carb. It was a great car, just a hoot in a holler to drive. Hang on, I’ll tell the story of my wife’s Corolla SR5 next week.

Jim, I wasn’t aware of the rare blue color. I guess I just took it for granted that there were plenty of blue ones. Wow, I find that out over 18 years after I sold it!

As I think back, several things in particular come back to me about that car. For example, the air filter looked like a flying saucer with its round conical shape. My girlfriend at the time called it “cute”.

And the crankcase only took 3.5 quarts, with filter. So if I went to a quickie oil change place, they usually overfilled it by a 1/2 a quart unless I told them ahead of time. Even then, I was often blown off and they still overfilled it.

In the USMC, I was a Motor Transport Officer. My maintenance chief, who was a Gunnery Sergeant (“Gunny”) swore by Slick 50 in his three cylinder Geo Metro. So after a while, he talked me into trying a quart of Slick 50. So I changed the oil in my Corolla, added only 2 1/2 qts, and one qt of Slick 50. I drove it around for the recommended 3000 miles and then replaced it with fresh oil. Then it was time for us to deploy to Saudi Arabia for the Gulf War. After I got back to the States, I did my best to try to see any improvements in how the car ran and in my gas mileage. I couldn’t tell a difference. This was in ’90-’91, so I had the car for about three more years after that with no oil related issues.

back on 1989 i bought a brand new toyota camry wagon with 5 speed probably more expensive than your bretta(paid almost 13k)but well worth the price i am still driving it with 300k miles(302000 as of now)&rarely had any problems with it.i am glad i did not buy that escort wagon instead.

I had an ’88 Beretta GT with the 5-speed manual and V6 2.8l engine with red exterior and sandalwood interior (ordered from the factory). It worked pretty well for about 100k miles. I had a stalling problem where the engine would not idle from time-to-time. Various dealers could not solve the problem until it was discovered the engine control unit contained programming for an automatic transmission car!
The digital dash was troublesome- the illuminating bulbs burned out and it was about $200 to replace them. The speedometer was not visible without these bulbs working.
Shortly before I traded it, the transmission had an bearing failure which cost $1k to fix.

Nicely done, I recall that letter from GM when I graduated from Engineering school.

However my father still had the 81 Impala with torqueless 267 V8 so I laughed as I threw the letter away. I wound up taking the straight six out of my Matador and dropping it into my Grandfather’s Concord. Two years of trouble free driving for $100.

Nicely done I enjoyed this and you are right as rain about people loving cars because of the memories we all have had in our cars. That said, I always wanted a Chevy C/B even though I know a lot of parts/pieces are just crap. I liked the look of em and and my friend had a 95 with a 3.1 that won plenty of drag races which sold me on these cars

I saluted your self restraint not to get something like a Cadillac or a loaded Trans Am, or maybe even a Corvette (can you get a Corvette for $30 grand back then?) for $30,000 (in 1989!) $30K is big bucks back then. My first car only one year from that time (1990), a Nissan Maxima SE, costs just $18,000. What would $30k loan get back then if maxed out?

I had a 1987 Dodge Lancer ES Turbo from 1988 to 1998. It was originally a new car for my wife, but at one point in our lives we got down to one car for a while, and then by the time we got back to having two cars again, the Dodge was so old I drove it all of the time.

Same thing, I remember bringing the car to our first home, bringing home our first child in the back of the car, loading it up and moving it and all of our possessions to our house in Georgia. Then bringing home our second child, all of the usual excursions back North to see family, the daily grind of commuting, going to dance recitals, school plays, Girl Scout camps…

Finally, in 1998, after 10 years of hard daily use, I got the pick up truck bug and bought an extended cab 1995 Dakota. My two daughters who were rather young at the time, were rather upset with me that I traded the Lancer.

My older daughter, once she was old enough to get out of car and booster seats, always sat in the passenger seat and was my ‘navigator’, even though she had no idea where we were going. She knew how to get to McDonalds, though! My younger daughter was always in the back of the Lancer, playing with her dolls and crayons and coloring books. It was like a little play gym for her. Due to my wife’s then-job, the three of us spent a lot of time together. And since we seemingly had to drive 20 minutes to get anywhere from our subdivision, we spent a lot of time in that car.

It wasn’t until weeks later I realized that I had given away a big chunk of my life in that car. The ten years I owned it represented massive changes to my life, seemingly embodied in that car.

I guess everyone else has stories like this too. I guess that’s why we all come here…

i am wondering with lots of great cars been built in this country why most people would go for asian or german(i wa about to add french cars then i reliazed i havent seen any here!?)cars,i just moved to this country from australia&i do not have alot of info about car market here but all i know is some american motors can last alot longer than any japanese or european models as i was a mechanic in melbourne for twentysome years.the picture is my daily driver 1989 mercury grand marquis ls which i bought from original owner with over 400k miles&still original motor&trans.

It’s because they are pretty much completely overrated. The one that is starting to bother me the most is the German cars, VW in particular, which are over priced and not that reliable (I do like the old Beetles though).

I will say I like Subaru’s though, they don’t seem to be overrated reliability wise.

That Grand Marquis looks really nice from the picture, especially with its mileage.

My Beretta GTU is almost at 180k and still runs strong, and is still “tight”, no play in the steering or anything like that, handles amazingly (although the GTU models were noted for that back when they were new). No leaks or anything like that either.

The people need to look at it is, if you take care of your car (which it seems most do not) it will take care of you, anything will be unreliable if you thrash it constantly and/or don’t do maintenance on it.

Man I haven’t seen a base model Beretta in forever! I rarely see them on the road in any trim level these days. Really wasn’t a bad looking car and for whatever reason, the L-Body Beretta/Corsica always seemed screwed together a little better than their N-Body counterparts. My dad had a very early Corsica as a company car for a year or two and I remember when he got it thinking that it looked crazy futuristic but I don’t really remember anything about it other than that. The only one I ever drove was my Driver’s Ed car, which was a ’96 Corsica V6. A pretty solid turd that was fairly comfortable and could move decently in a straight line but didn’t like turning. I took (and passed – barely) my road test in that car.

My mother also bought her first (and only) new car from GM in 1989, and it was a Cavalier with this same 2.0l OHV four… but backed by the 3-speed auto transaxle instead. The 5-speed was definitely the way to go! It wasn’t “slow” with the automatic but it sucked all the life out of it. That car later became my hand-me-down first car and has given me a paradoxical view of the Chevy OHV four. I know lots of people, like Jim apparently, had great luck with it and got tons of miles with relatively little maintenance. Mine was apart several times before it was finally turned into soda cans before 90k miles. No amount of money, effort or skill could keep that car on the road for more than a few weeks at a time. I did get a whole hell of a lot of mechanical knowledge out of it, and also many harrowing family vacations! It was the same color red as this, same color interior and set up almost the same way – the only options were the automatic, A/C and tape deck installed at the dealership.

If I’m remembering correctly, the Beretta in these years was available with both the V6 and the 180HP Quad4. The latter option must have been a blast – these cars only weighed about 2600-2700 pounds empty. I used to play hockey with a guy who had a very rare Corsica hatchback which I always thought was pretty cool. One of those with the Quad4/5-speed would be totally sweet.

Wow, so many great car-related human interest stories from Jim and others on here.

Back in 1998, I paid for a first car, a used car, for my oldest niece;my brother had 4 kids and was divorced. Anyway, she and her mom picked it out. I wasn’t too impressed with the test drive of the 1988 Beretta, but went ahead and got it for her. In short order it needed quite a number of repairs. At least her mother agreed to pay for the upkeep. In time I realized that I’d greatly overpaid ($2K) for a car that might have been worth only about half that. It was one of those cars that looked better than it ran. Once the repairs were made, though, it ran good enough to get her several speeding tickets! And, she’s now happily married with 3 kids, and her husband has her in a late model SUV.

Whenever I hear “Beretta” I always think of that detective show with Robert Blake.
My SIL had a Corseca. She acquired that when she gave up her………ahem……….1970 Chevy Chevelle. I hope whoever bought that car restored it! It was mint!

I still see Beretta’s driving around. Though I don’t think I’ll be seeing too many making the car show circuit. They’re a car that takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’!

Is that GM part number for the ignition rack correct for your Beretta? I have a 89 Corsica and the same thing happened. Car will start but when you turn the key off and take it out, the car still runs. The rack broke off the rest of the part. I need one and am hoping that the part number in the picture will work. It looks the exact same. Thanks. We got our Corsica last summer for 1500bucks and it only has 60k miles on it. Interior is immaculate, but the paint, of course, is all kinds of crappy. Anyway, cheers mate!